It is not alone through the subversion of the doctrine of the resurrection, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul strikes against the coming of the Lord. The issue is directly joined. For by those who believe in the natural immortality of the soul, it is held that those who die in the Lord go straight to heaven; that they go direct to the place where the Lord is; and so they sing,—BEST August 10, 1903, page 385.1

“Then persevere till death
Shall bring thee to thy God;
He’ll bring thee, at thy parting breath,
To his divine abode.”—Gospel Hymns, No. 112.BEST August 10, 1903, page 385.2

And obituaries are actually written by them such as the following, which we read not long since in the “Christian Cynosure“: “Alvah Palmer went to Heaven from” a certain place in New York; and then the notice went on to tell when and of what he died, etc. And Dr. Talmage, in relating how a certain saintly woman was “emparadised,” tells how the chariot of Elijah was outdone; for there it must have taken some little time to turn out the chariot and hitch up the horses; but here, in this instance, the transition was all made instantaneously, without waiting for either horses or chariot! And all this when a person died! These are only notable expressions of the common idea of those who believe in the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul.BEST August 10, 1903, page 385.3

Now, if these things be true,—if it be true that death brings people to God; that men and women go direct to heaven from their homes in this world, and this so instantaneously that there is no time to get ready the chariot of God, as was done when Elijah went without dying at all,—we say if these things be true, then there is literally no place left for the coming of the Lord. It would be simply the height of ridiculous absurdity to talk about the Lord’s coming to this world after people who are not here at all, but are, and have been, for years and hundreds of years, in heaven—in the very place which he leaves to come here! This is why the doctrine of the coming of the Lord is so neglected, so despised, in fact. Believing this, there is no need to believe in the coming of the Lord; indeed, it is a palpable inconsistency to believe in it. Believing this, there is no need to look, or wait, for the coming of the Lord; all there is for such to do is to wait till death shall come and take them, and so death—“the last enemy,” “the king of terrors”—is given the place and the office of Him who is altogether lovely and the chiefest among ten thousand, of Him “that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”BEST August 10, 1903, page 385.4

But this belief is not the “belief of the truth.” There is no element of truth, in any form, in the idea of people going to God or to heaven when they die. Christ Himself said as plainly as tongue can speak, “Whither I go, ye cannot come.” John 18:33. Then when His disciples were troubled because of these words He told them, in words equally plain, of the event upon which they must place their only hope of being with Him where He is, and that event is, “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:3. And that word “that” shows positively that that is the only way in which men may ever be with Him where He is. Therefore the coming of the Lord is the Christian’s hope. And the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in supplanting, as assuredly it does, the doctrine of the coming of the Lord, supplants the Christian’s hope. Then when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul sends men to heaven before the end of the world, before the sounding of the last trump, before the time when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven and raise the dead, before He appears in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and sends His angels to gather together His elect—we say when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul puts men into heaven before the occurrence of these events, it does it in defiance of the word of Christ, which liveth and abideth forever. Therefore we say it stands proved, that the belief of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is subversive of the doctrine of the second coming of Christ, and, in that, is subversive of the truth of God.BEST August 10, 1903, page 385.5

Next week we will consider the relation of the immortality of the soul to the judgment.BEST August 10, 1903, page 385.6

August 3, 1903

August 17, 1903